Sydney Opera House project

AM Archive - Monday, 8 July , 2002 00:00:00

Reporter: Anne Maria Nicholson

HAMISH ROBERTSON: It may be one of the icons of the 20th Century but in architectural circles the world-famous Sydney Opera House is regarded as unfinished business.

Now after an absence of 36-years, its architect Jorn Utzon, who says he was forced off the site before it was completed, has been invited back to the project.

The Danish architect has been living a reclusive life on the Spanish Island of Majorca. It was there that he talked exclusively to ABC reporter, Anne Maria-Nicholson about his dream for his future of the building that's known as the eight wonder.

ANNE-MARIA NICHOLSON: To find Jorn Utzon you have to wend your way through the centuries old Spanish villages and go high up in the Majorcan countryside.

In a commanding sandstone house he built with the help of local artisans, he's working once more on the Sydney Opera House.

JORN UTZON: I have the Opera House in my head like a composer has his symphony. He can, at any time go into the symphony and hear it and that's why I am relatively valuable.

ANNE-MARIA NICHOLSON: It's 36-years since Jorn Utzon left Sydney never to return. He says he was forced to quit because the then New South Wales Coalition Government refused to pay him to continue the project.

JORN UTZON: You can call it whatever you want, I couldn't go on because of lack of interest in my continuation.

ANNE-MARIA NICHOLSON: He son, Jan Utzon remembers his father's shock at his treatment.

JAN UTZON: They said they would not pay his fees, he had to close office since I cannot pay my employees I have to close office and force me to leave my work. That was accepted as a kind of resignation.

ANNE-MARIA NICHOLSON: After he left, the continuing construction of one of the world's most daring buildings divided the architectural world. Jorn Utzon's designs for the interior were never realised but the master architect shows no bitterness.

JORN UTZON: It has become such a marvellous thing or building or whatever you call it for Australia and for time. So I'm not to criticise, I'm so happy about it. Sometimes in architecture it happens that a daring step into the unknown gives us great gifts for the future.

ANNE-MARIA NICHOLSON: At 84, Jorn Utzon is a tall and imposing man. With his wife Liz he has divided his time between his home in Copenhagen and Majorca, a place he chose because it reminded him of Australia.

His son Jan, who trained as an architect at the University of New South Wales, and Sydney architect Richard Johnson have helped develop design principles to take the Sydney Opera House into the future.

Now the three are working on detailed planning for imminent changes to the Opera House.

JAN UTZON: I can easily discern between his work and other people's work but also I realise as my father also says, that he's lucky to have been involved in such a nice structure for so long a time.

Whereas in Europe we have cathedrals which are still being worked on for after 400-hundred years and we have generations of architects working with these old people like architects and so on.

ANNE-MARIA NICHOLSON: The New South Wales Government has committed around 70 million dollars to fulfil Utzon's vision. While it's too late to restore his original layout for the interior there will still be significant changes.

JAN UTZON: He likes the building enormously, and lucky to feel that we are committed to deal with this because what we are dreaming of is to be architects who work for the happiness of the people who are in the building and come there.

ANNE-MARIA NICHOLSON: While the Opera House continues to attract millions of visitors every year, Jorn Utzon has never seen it.

But you might go back to Sydney maybe?

JORN UTZON: Yes, just put that in, because that will stop people from asking about it.